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ÉIST LIOM (Listen to me)

In residency from 26 November until 9 December

For her new research project Listen to me or Éist liom,
Zoe Ní Riordáin has started the new idea for a perfroamnce in the Irish
language. The idea is to make an opera made up of one-side of different
conversations in various scenarios. For example, a social worker goes
to a house to visit a family, and we hear the questions she asks, but
not the responses. Her idea is that there will be multiple performers of
different ages, backgrounds, and races that will each perform one of
the texts over specially composed music.

Zoe Ní Riordáin is
researching empathy, how we listen, who we listen to and why. She will
be looking at alienation as a theme in the piece, so her research will
be informed by immigrant experience. Irish is a foreign language to many
Irish people so I want to explore how immigrants connect to a language
that is not in use.

“The idea to write in Irish has been with
me for a while. I grew up speaking Irish fluently (went to Irish
language schools), but neither of my parents are Irish, or spoke the
language. I am interested in a new generation of immigrants in Ireland
who have been learning Irish as a compulsory language in our secondary
schools. I would like to hear their voices, accents and interpretations
of a language that I think poetic and beautiful. I am interested in what
the results will be when Irish people and ‘non-nationals’ will all be
speaking in Irish. I have written some material (conversations and
music) and I want to build this material using found text (overheard
conversations and articles).”

Bio

Zoe is an independent theatre writer-director and musician from Dublin. To date, she has made three original pieces of theatre; The Well Rested Terrorist, Recovery, and Everything I Do.
Zoe is interested in exploring how music functions in theatre, and the
spiritual crisis of connection that is breaking her heart.

Zoe received the Pan Pan International Mentorship Bursary 2018 to develop, Éist Liom. She also received Irish Arts Council Development award for the project. This year, she founded a theatre and music company, One Two One Two with long-time collaborator, Maud Lee.